Posted on 05/05/2015 10:19:15 PM PDT by Swordmaker
The patent -- which ensures the design for the Apple Watch cannot be copied by a competitor -- was filed in August of last year, just weeks ahead of its unveiling.
The Apple Watch's design is now officially protected by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
The USPTO on Tuesday issued a design patent on the Apple Watch look and feel. The design patent filing provides precious little information, but includes several sketches showing the device from all angles, including from the top, side and underneath the face where the sensor and charging apparatus sit.
Getting a design patent is an important step in protecting an invention. Apple's newly delivered patent means other companies cannot copy the design of its wearable. It doesn't, however, prevent other companies from delivering products that are similar, but not identical in design.
Interestingly, the design patent was filed with the USPTO in August 2014, just weeks before Apple unveiled its smartwatch at an event in September. Likely in an effort to hide its plans, Apple named its patent simply "Electronic device."
The Apple Watch, which requires an iPhone 5 or later to run basic apps and receive notifications, is Apple's first foray into the wearables space, and a pricey one at that. It tops out at $17,000 for the 18-karat gold edition, with more modestly priced options like the Apple Watch Sport, which starts at $349.
The smartwatch market had been ticking quietly for several years, with occasional flutters on rumors of an impending watch from Apple. The Apple Watch went on sale last month, and analysts have contended that it is the spark that the market has been waiting for.
Competitors include a range of new or updated smartwatches from companies including Sony, Samsung, Huawei, Motorola, LG and Pebble. The Apple Watch's health-tracking capabilities also mean that consumers will be weighing it against fitness bands from the likes of Fitbit and Microsoft.
Unlike with iPhone launches, Apple has not yet disclosed initial sales figures. The smartwatch has been back-ordered since presales started April 10, and many would-be buyers won't receive their Apple Watches until June or even July. It's unclear how much of the delay is due to the strength of the demand and how much is because of supply shortages and manufacturing issues.
Apple Watch's design has been generally viewed positively, with CNET's Reviews team saying it's "the most ambitious, well-constructed smartwatch ever seen." Like most smartwatches, the Apple Watch comes with a rectangular touchscreen and is offered in three flavors -- a low-cost Sport model, the standard model, and a gold-plated Edition version. Since the basic design and form factor are identical across the product line, the design patent covers all versions.
According to the design patent documentation, Apple's intellectual property is good for 14 years.
Apple declined to comment on the patent.
And not one of those watches looks anything at all like an Apple Watch. . . Or, anything like any of the others, BECAUSE they all have design patents filed preventing them from infringing the look and feel of the others.
And here is another post that had a very mild slur aimed at Neidermeyer which he couldn't abide after spending a lot of time insulting me, so he had the AM delete the reply. Thin skinned isn't he? He feels free to dish out insults but can't take 'em at all!
But you tend to go stark raving ballistic even when no one is insulting you at all. I wonder what prompts these sudden frothing all caps outbursts of yours.
“Online already go thru verification services. That is not part of the upgrade. the upgrade is for physical POS terminal merchants.”
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I’m having difficulty understanding your mechanisms of (non cashless payment) over distances. Do you use a verification service to verify identity and then insert the greenbacks in the mail?
Or do you use Hawala dealers to make distant payments/transfers?
“Online already go thru verification services. That is not part of the upgrade. the upgrade is for physical POS terminal merchants.”
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I’m having difficulty understanding your mechanisms of (non cashless payment) over distances. Do you use a verification service to verify identity and then insert the greenbacks in the mail?
Or do you use Hawala dealers to make distant payments/transfers?
I’ll believe that when the trampolines and safety nets are removed from the slave workers dormitories in communist china. Where the Apple slave laborers live the few hours a day they are not assembling Apple ipods and other Apple gadgets for Asians and the American/European beanie copter crowd.
The gays are not buying that silly Apple watch
They need to install more of them.
Ethan, there have been insults slung at me in this thread. Two posters on this thread have been needling and insulting me repeatedly and have continued it from other threads for the purpose of getting me angered. They were even gloating about it in the open. Those posts have been deleted by the AM.
I am not frothing. . . I use caps because sometimes it is easier to use them than to use HTML to put stress on certain words when necessary, or to get through to people who seem too dense to pick up the meanings after numerous, repeated explanations that everyone else has picked up. For example, on this thread the repeated idiotic claims that Apple was copying and infringing the patent of Dell's charger cable ties, or the claim there were no differences in the digital watch designs when the differences are blatant for anyone to see kind of require a bit of shouting at the idiot who kept on claiming it. . . and even insulting him for his denseness. . . which he did not like, after insulting me numerous times which I did not respond to, but he asked the AM to delete the entire on point, accurate response, based on a four word sentence about his denseness! That kind of idiocy sometimes requires shouting to get through the lead lined neutronium skull. . . but it doesn't.
Other than that, I do not use them. Now, "frothing all caps outbursts of yours" are not characteristic of my posts at all . . . and you know it. That is actually an ad hominem attack intended to make me appear deranged. Cut it out.
Please read my posts on China for content. Set aside your "Communist" bias for a moment and listen to what I am saying. I am an Economist, and do know what I am talking about. It does not matter what trappings children do for patriotism for Mother China. . . what matters is what is that country doing that we have to worry about on the world stage. They are changing their economy to a Capitalistic Economy. . . and doing so very rapidly. They see what works and are doing it. They saw what did not work.
As I told you, the Chinese, if anything, are pragmatic. in reality, they never left the feudalistic system. They just exchanged it for different masters when the nationalists and then the commissars took over from the Emperors and his satraps. For the most part, it was same jobs, different overseers. And under the Communists, add calisthenics and have office workers go to the fields for a work vacation every so often. . . and screw up what was minimally working under Feudalism because the new soviet (committee) system was, like any committee, incapable of making a decision to save it's neck.
The USSR had crippled the Chinese by selling them Soviet made hardware, but not the equipment to build repair parts for anything that was sold to them, from Railroad locomotives, to the aircraft and military equipment, automobiles, factory machinery, ships, everything. When the Iron Curtain fell, and the USSR was no more, the props were pulled out from under the Communist regime in China . . . and no financial aid was coming from the USSR to buy those repair parts. . . and the new URS wanted hard currency from China, which it could ill afford, to buy replacement parts. . . and under no circumstance would they accept the Rubles they had sent them before.
The Communist Chinese soon found themselves in deep doo-doo. It was actually over a period of about five to ten years as the shoddy Soviet built equipment fell apart. . . and China's economy started to also fall apart.
Pragmatically, the Chinese government realized something had to be done.
Buying more from Russia was not a good answer. More repair parts for failing junk wasn't going to be a long term solution. The solution was to buy new infrastructure and new machinery from new trading partners. That meant Korea, Japan, Indonesia, and the US. . . and that meant making products to TRADE back to pay for it. But how? They were just as cash strapped for dollars to pay for to these countries as they were to buy from Russia. . . and their crippled economy had nothing really to sell to earn it.
Their answer hit them in the face when they were handed the sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997 and agreed to not change the economic system of that thriving Capitalistic enclave. When they realized that Hong Kong alone was generating more GNP than all of the rest of China, it hit them that what they had been doing was just flat out wrong. What China had was a large inexpensive labor pool but no way to use it effectively. . . but Hong Kong showed them how. So, using income from normal taxes received from Hong Kong income, China started opening other interior cities to be Capitalistic Enclaves. . . and then more and more. They invited foreign companies to come in and build factories, manage factories, and invest, the whole nine-yards of a Capitalistic structure.
That was so successful, and noting that the small private plots were completely out-producing the collecting farms themselves, ownership shares were opened to the workers of the collective farms and productivity boomed. That is still a work in progress. . . but it's happening. They're doing what works. . . free enterprise.
China established a low Capital Gains tax, a low Corporate income tax, and low workers income taxes. . . but retained the trappings of a socialistic society with universal health care, etc. . . (i.e. not very good health care, just universal, but a hell or a lot better for the ruling class). And of course the military which is necessary to absorb the surplus males. Iron hand rule on social things. . . religion, free speech, privacy, more than one child? forget 'em. But it is Capitalist. . . with minimal regulation.
So, Ethan, my point is that China is no longer "communist" but still a totalitarian state. . . I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it isn't communistic anymore. It is in flux.
Anything in flux can be very dangerous. . . and we need to face it as it is, not what it once was, if it ever was.
Wow, what a massive rant. I wonder what prompted it. I hope you used a tissue to mop up the frothy white build-up. Whatever the case, it's clear that Apple fanbuoys are more than willing to work for the Chinese Communist Party disseminating impassioned pro-Chicom propaganda and apologetics. This makes them a threat to national security of course.
Frothy, eh? Evidently you failed to read it. You cannot even recognize an educated, informed thesis from someone who knows what he is talking about from a rant. . . because you are not at all interested in facts, only emotion, and would rather take the opportunity to bash Apple, just like a low information voter.
From now on you are on ignore. I thought you might be worth an intelligent conversation. Obviously you are not. Too bad. Get an education one of these days, Ethan.
Just keep on posting your empty, emotional photographs of children dancing with Chines flags. That's the level of discourse you are capable of having. Osgoode: "Yes, but here's some more dancing children waving hammer and sickle flags! How terrible! It's all Apple's fault!"
Take a look at the treatise I wrote to a Freeper who could not be even bothered to read it near the end of this thread. You might find it worth your while.
This is one of those things that I can't comprehend the need to explain. It is so obvious that I find it hard to believe anyone needs an explanation. They brought it into court as "prior art" to demonstrate that the idea was not dreamed up by Apple. Conceptually, and by that "look and feel" which you were discussing previously, there is little difference between what that movie produced, and what Apple subsequently produced.
I ask the same question of why do YOU bring it up if everyone knows it was not real, what purpose do you have in denigrating the company who actually made them work successfully?
What made them work successfully is the fact that the technology finally became available for people to build things such as this with it. The idea was older than the technology necessary to support it.
What new thing did Apple bring to the technology? What particular characteristic of their device is worthy of being patented? If it's the idea that "Look! A screen that you can carry around and use for data entry, etc!", then I would say Stanley Kubrick had that covered back in 1968.
No worries. I do wish to mention that I think Apple's products are great and generally far superior to their competition. I do not have so much a problem with the products they produce as I do with their politics and wealth, which I now see as a threat to me and mine.
So many lies. . . China Labor Watch is notorious for propaganda. The article you've linked to, "Apple’s Shameful Secret: Watch Factory Worker’s Dead Body Discovered In River After Suspected Suicide –– See The Shocking Video", from an online Tabloid like scandal sheet, like all of their articles, is made up of innuendo and rumors and not facts or even evidence. Here is the last sentence filled with lies:
There have been many reports of suicides at factories producing Apple products over the last five years. In 2010, 14 workers at a Foxconn complex in Shenzhen, China, took their own lives. The company soon installed suicide safety nets to prevent employees from jumping to their deaths.
This lie has been promulgated so many times it is ridiculous. . . and China Labor Watch absolutely knows it as a fact! Not a single one of those 2010 suicides occurred at a Foxconn factory manufacturing Apple Products, not a single one. This is well known and documented in numerous reports and investigations. The plant where those suicides occurred were making Microsoft Xboxes, HP Computers, Sony Playstations, and Nokia cellular phones. . . not any kind of Apple Products.
You've been told this, with links to the evidence and the facts, numerous times, Ethan, and so has the serial liar DennisW, but you both still repeat the propaganda and the lies promulgated by an organization with an agenda. That makes you a liars as well, because you also know the truth and choose to ignore it in favor of the lies.
Diogenes, an invention is seldom "dreamed up" in its entiretey by its inventor. That is what the general public and often juries have to be disabused from before an infringement case can move forward. The fact is that most inventions that are literally dreamed up by their inventors that were never, ever thought of before, but couldn't be done because the technology just did not exist, are so rare they can probably be counted on the fingers of our hands.
One, for example, is Edison's invention of the phonograph. The recording of sound was not something that anyone had really thought possible. But most everything else was something that others had thought about, wrote about, or discussed, or were even working on. . . but could not make work. Those other people making the attempts, writing about the possibilities, or discussing the invention, did not obviate the true creative genius of the person or people who actually finally did make it work, or prevent the inventor from patenting his invention.
You appear to be one of those who mistake such "prior art" as something real. . . it isn't. "Feel" those permanently installed "tablets" on the tables in 2001 could not be picked up, had no touch interface, and as such had no "feel" at all. They were an illusion.
What new thing did Apple bring to the technology? What particular characteristic of their device is worthy of being patented? If it's the idea that "Look! A screen that you can carry around and use for data entry, etc!", then I would say Stanley Kubrick had that covered back in 1968.
And that statement just proves my point: you do not understand at all what "prior art" means when it comes to patents, especially design patents.
Stanley Kubrick did not invent the computer tablet, because he did not produce a description of a potentially working tablet or even describe a working product, nor describe how it would work; he did not invent the look and feel worthy of a design patent because it could not meet even the basic criteria for such a patent. . . It is not a product. Under your theory of "prior art" on patents, Herbert George Wells invented the mechanism for traveling through time in 1895 when he wrote his book, "The Time Machine". BZZZT wrong on all counts.
You just demonstrated exactly why Samsung's attorneys brought this film clip into court and why the judge almost sanctioned them. Judge Koh should have sanctioned them. It was legally unethical, it's the equivalent of putting a known perjurer on the stand with the intent that he give perjured testimony, and definitely worthy of sanctions. Samsung's attorneys knew it was inadmissible, but showed it anyway as a ploy to prejudice the jury. Apple's attorneys immediately objected and the judge dismissed the jury while she admonished the Samsung attorneys. Some legal experts say she should have kept the jury present to underscore what she did when the jury was brought back into the courtroom. The judge instructed the jury they could not give Stanley Kubrick's fiction any weight at all. . . but the damage was already done. Some of the jurors even mentioned it after the trial as a reason for a lower judgement amount than they would have awarded had they not thought there was "prior art." i.e. The Samsung attorneys succeeded in unethically obfuscating the case in some jurors' minds by presenting it.
Are you seriously claiming these bands are identical in design to Dell’s rubber cable tie band, so much so that you, asshat that you have shown your self to be, have reported this as a patent infringement to Dell’s legal department?
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They have design elements that are identical,, the slide in attachment mechanism , apple just moved the idents to the band from the receptacle , the nub to lock in a hole (identical except for choice of material... like that matters) and the band material , softened plastic. I’m just pointing out that seemingly you can patent anything , no matter how much of it is stolen... I could find DOZENS of examples but this one was right in front of me...
There is NOTHING new in the ballyhooed watchband that deserves protection... It’s like patenting “round” for a tire shape, or smooth edges on a phone.
P.S. I didn’t cry to the mods as you stated ,, maybe they’re just watching your threads... You see I just don’t care what you or anyone else thinks about trivial subjects like this, it’s only value is entertainment, I post what I see and let it ride. Sometimes I poke and prod where it’s needed or where it might produce some entertainment value. I’m just living up to my screen-name after all.
Adios!
LCD screens. Did Apple invent those? Touch Screens. Did Apple invent those? Low power microprocessors and memory. Did Apple invent those?
It seems as though all the essential ingredients were created by other people, and their combination into a small portable computer seems rather obvious to me. Isn't one of the rules of patenting that it can't be something which is obvious to people who work in an industry?
Copyrighting your particular style or design I can see. But what basis is there for a patent?
Apple invented the multitouch on a transparent screen. . . and holds the patent on it. . . which is what made the modern smart phones possible. You can make all kinds of excuses you want, Diogenes, but you don't cut it. Apple made it all work. The others did not. If it was so "obvious to you" why are you not the inventor??? Why are you not the CEO of the largest business in the world? Why are you not a multibillionaire? Monday morning inventors are a dime a hundred. . . and critics like you are pathetic. Your question about what purpose there is in a patent is patently absurd. . . and even more pathetic. Read our Constitution. it's in there.
None of that are "identical" and you know it. . . especially the slide in attachment which is entirely missing from your Dell strap. Quit lying, Neidermeye and admit you are wrong. An invention does not have to be entirely a completely new to qualify for a patent. You guys really love to stretch to bash Apple.
Not bashing AAPL , just the notion that you can patent a miniscule difference that macht nichts ,, especially in light of apple’s penchant for suing over things even smaller than that. You won’t even acknowledge the theft and I wouldn’t either because it isn’t something new or different,, I’ve seen it used on many gadgets .. what aapl patented in the strap is not patentable or even noteworthy, it’s no different that tying to patent cotton as a cloth material.
The gays are not buying that silly Apple watch.
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Careful , that’s the entirety of the marketing campaign.
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